Most valuable and workable ore contains separable particles of heavy metal values within a matrix of light mineral gang.
In the course of recovering metal from ore, it is common practice to reduce or break the ore down into a fine particulate state or condition by a suitable milling operation and to thereby release the metal values from the gang matrix.
Thereafter, and prior to smelting or otherwise processing the metal values, the values are concentrated, that is, the commingled milled values and gang are worked upon to separate and to remove as much of the gang as is possible and to thereby increase the percentage or concentration of metal values.
The separating of metal values and gang to concentrate the values is commonly carried out by mechanical means and/or devices which are called concentrators. Due to the widely different structural makeup and/or characteristics of different ore, it has been found that a concentrator which is highly effective to concentrate the metal values of one ore is of questionable effectiveness when working on certain other ore and may be totally ineffective to work upon yet another ore. As a result of the foregoing, the prior art is repleat with many different concentrators, few of which can be said to be universally applicable and effective to work upon all or a multiplicity of different ore containing one particular metal value, such as gold, tungsten or silver.
Substantially all concentrators rely upon the difference in specific gravity between the heavy metal values and the light gang of the ore worked upon to effect separation of the materials.
In using or operating most concentrators, the ore worked upon is mixed with copious quantities of water to establish an aqueous slurry in which, by specific gravity displacement, and under the force of gravity, the light gang moves upward to the top of the slurry and the heavy metal values move downward and tend to settle or drop out of the slurry.
Beyond the above, most concentrators serve to control the flow of the slurry or material worked upon and impart motion into the slurry, whereby the above noted specific gravity displacement of materials is enhanced. Most concentrators also operate to cause the separated gang occurring above the heavy metal values to flow separately away from the heavy metal values for disposal and cause the heavy metal values, below the light gang, to flow separately to a place where it collects or is collected for subsequent processing.
As a general rule, concentrators are large, heavy, costly to make and to operate and require the extravagant use of large volumes of water. Further, they are rather slow operating, that is, the rate at which they effect separation and collecting of values sought to be recovered is rather slow.
As a result of the foregoing, few efficient and effective concentrators are portable in nature and few are such that they can be satisfactorily moved from one site to another. Still further, few concentrators provided by the prior art can be economically and effectively used where there is not a large and inexpensive supply of water.
Very frequently ore is heavily ladened with or has a high percentage of garnet. Garnet has a high specific gravity and a hardness as high as 9 and is unique in that when reduced into particulate form, each particle has 7, 9, 11 or 13 flat facets. As a result of the above, when ore containing garnet is mechanically worked upon in most concentrators, the heavy and hard garnet of unique configuration settles out and works into or establishes a dense, structurally stable and substantially stationary layer or bridged garnet particles, through which heavier particulate material such as metal values, cannot migrate and over which such values freely move to evade collection.
As a result of the above, there are numerous known deposits of garnet which are heavily ladened with gold and other metal values, from which the metal values cannot be effectively and economically extracted. In these cases, when the ores are worked upon in efforts to liberate and separate the metal values, the garnet continuously bridges and combines to create barriers which hold the metal values captive and/or direct the values in such a way or manner that they cannot be effectively collected.